The Yellow Dress Gala

April 27, 2016

-$40

Trauma can do one of two things, it can break you or it can propel you through healing to finding your own unique purpose.

Join us on March 18th for what promises to be an inspiring evening. Funds raised will be going towards the production of our documentary ‘The Yellow Dress – A Story of Hope’ and the establishment of a local (Lethbridge and Western Canada) chapter of Voice Found. The evening will feature a silent auction with paintings from The Yellow Dress series, musical entertainment, refreshments and an opportunity to meet and speak with the artist. Tickets can be purchased online here or further down on the page: Purchase Tickets Here

About The Yellow Dress Series

Why the yellow? “I’ve been asked this a lot. I’m not really one who tends to be a yellow person. The colour is probably on my least favourite list, well it was. This project has changed my perception of the colour. After considering the choices to represent such a delicate part of myself, yellow happened to ‘fall onto the canvas’ so to speak. The yellow represents my hope. The process of healing can be dark and it can feel lonely. Trauma can sounds scary to people on the outside, it creates an uncertainty. Truly though it is just as scary and filled with just as much uncertainty to the person who is experiencing and healing from Trauma. It requires a great deal of hope, trust, and whole lot of faith to consider going through the painful healing process. I will be honest, sometimes I have lost sight of those things and as long as I keep going I find it again. The yellow reminds me that hope exists even though at times it can feel like it doesn’t.”Why are all the girls silhouettes? “The answer to this is one that requires delicate words. The easy answer is that the contrast is beautiful. That’s the easy answer though. The truth is that the silhouettes represent the shame. Shame is the I am _____, (unworthy, stupid, undeserving, etc.) It has a tendency to swallow up the uniqueness. It swallows up the talents, dreams, and future in my case. Shame is deeply painful, it occurs in everyone and in many different situations. Shame for survivors of childhood trauma is usually what fuels the silence and fuels the “I’m the only one” mentality. I learned a lot and healed a lot learning about shame. Brene Brown’s book, “I thought it was just me (but it wasn’t)” provided me with insight and understanding into shame that lead to healing breakthroughs, I strongly recommend it. When we shed the blackness of the shame, we can find our uniqueness.
We need the yellow dress to do that though, we need the hope of better, days, nights, tomorrow’s, of health, strength, and love. We need the hope of being worthy of love, compassion, empathy. We simply need hope of good. So when I look at these paintings that’s what I see. That is what I am reminded of.”

Here are just a few of the paintings that you can bid on during the gala

Meet the Artist

“Never before could I imagine that I would be introduced this way. In fact it wasn’t a dear friend introduced me as her ‘artist friend’ that I even began to consider myself as an artist. I saw my paintings as a form of healing practice.

Artist Torre

It is that, exactly that. The yellow dress series started in one of the most desperate and dark times I’ve experienced in my life. It was a point where the hurt of my childhood trauma had taken hold of my life and swallowed me up. The painting of the girl in the yellow dress free falling in mid air was the start. That was exactly where I was in my healing process. I was free falling and I had no idea if I would hit solid ground or somehow find a parachute to guide me to safety.
The yellow dress series is an artistic expression of healing from childhood trauma, specifically sexual abuse. It is dedicated to the millions of women wading through the murky waters of finding themselves, their value and their purpose after experiencing trauma. There is something so sacred stolen from a child that has experienced abuse and the shame can take years to break free from. I hope you join me in honouring the courage it takes to heal.